The Falcons senior setter, tracking the ball in the air, elevates off the ground with her hands skyrocketed.

“One,” shouts Katelyn Cuff, middle blocker.

She plants her feet on the hardwood, eyeballing the volleyball as it springs off Chandler’s fingertips.

Cuff leaps in one direction. The ball fades another. Adjusting mid-air, she swings, grazing only a portion of the ball. No big deal. A simple miscommunication in practice can easily be fixed.

After all, Chandler had been sidelined for two weeks with a concussion she sustained from a collision with Cuff against Poway. Rust and rocky chemistry are expected.

During her absence, Erin Dobson stepped in. The senior backup setter directed Torrey Pines through four conference matches and the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions where the Falcons finished fourth, losing to Archbishop Mitty and Corona Del Mar.

The losses dropped the Falcons, who had been ranked No. 1 in the nation to start the season, to 25-4 with CIF San Diego Section playoffs quickly approaching.

Chandler was back, though. And the pounding headaches and nausea that accompanied her concussion were gone. Cleared to resume, the Pepperdine commit returned to the court — restriction-free — Nov. 5.

Paranoia is there, too. When Cuff lands from the broken play during middle drills, a frightened and frustrated Chandler reacts.

“You’re too close,” she screams at Cuff, leery of another collision with the Colorado-bound middle blocker.

“What are you talking about?” Cuff responds.

Her teammates, surrounding the two players on the court, are puzzled. Cuff is nowhere near Chandler — at least not close enough to harm her.

Matters worsened. An identical situation occurs in practice later that day. Again, the volleyball was set in one direction while Cuff jumped the other.

This time, the miscommunication triggers tears from Chandler, who grows increasingly frustrated and emotional as practice progresses. She isn’t pleased with her performance, and it seems she and Cuff simply can’t connect on a play they’ve run hundreds of times.

“I made the mistake of saying, ‘I thought she was going to run over me,’ ” Chandler recalls, giggling.

Cuff added: “I think I was just afraid of making contact with her again and leading to another concussion or another injury and she was afraid of making contact with me.”

Coach Brennan Dean, witnessing a problem developing before his eyes, addressed his star players in private on the sidelines.

“We needed to come together, talk, get a quick cry in if they needed to, hug it out there and get back out there on the court and just keep moving forward,” Dean said.

It was crucial. The section playoffs were five days away. And if Torrey Pines was going to defend its 2011 Division I championship, Dean needed to pick up the pieces and reconfigure a fragile Chandler.

Convincing her that the collision was a freak occurrence and that she would regain her form within a few days was essential, particularly because Chandler held so much responsibility.